The Flying Fish (Exocoetidae)|| Finnick Odair X Fem!OC

Death is Not Pretty

"What now?" Ferric asks softly, poking his head out of the hole. Cress digs through the bag and finds a spile.

"Thirsty?" she asks, shoving the spile into the tree. She digs the empty bottle out of the bag and fills it up, taking a sip before handing it to Ferric.

"Thanks." he takes a sip and glances around. "This arena is weird huh?"

"Its gotta be a maze of some kind, that seems to move right? That's weird." Cress looks at the ground, squinting. She doesn't see anything but roots and dirt, so she glances back up.

"A moving labyrinth. Awesome," Ferric mutters. "Just what I wanted to hear."

"Alright, let's settle here for the night and keep moving tomorrow." Cress starts building a tiny fire while Ferric goes out to find food. He comes back about twenty minutes later with a small rabbit.

"How's this?" he asks.

"Damn, when'd you learn how to hunt?" Cress takes off the skin and fur with her knife.

"It's not that hard actually, spearguns basically do the work for you. What else do you have in your bag?" Ferric leans forward curiously.

"A blanket and what I think is a tarp." she holds it open so he can see. "Useful enough."

"That's not too bad actually." Ferric drinks more of the water before refilling it with the spile. "Damn this thing is useful."

"Surprisingly," Cress mutters. "Help me cook this thing will you?" They cook the rabbit to the best of their skills, which in Ferric's case was not exceptional.

"Is it supposed to be this charred?" he asks, holding up his piece of rabbit.

"You cooked it like that." Cress shrugs, putting out the fire with dirt. She eats her piece of rabbit, which honestly was pretty good.

"I'll take first watch." Ferric settles in a spot where he could see beyond the roots of the tree and on the path.

"Thanks," she mumbles, already lying down on the tarp. She put the blanket overtop of herself and almost immediately fell asleep.

"Cress! Cress, wake up!" Cress jolts awake to Ferric looking terrified.

"What, what's wrong?" she mumbles, sitting up.

"There's someone coming." he glances down the path.

"Get under the blanket." she hisses, peering into the dark as she tried to spot who was coming. He crawls under the blanket with her and they both hide.

"Come out, come out wherever you are." a creepy voice, male, resonates along the path and through the trees. "I can smell you."

"Is that the tribute from 10?" she whispers and Ferric nods.

"I saw his twin in the sky, he's probably gone nuts," Ferric whispers.

"Shit, you're right," she mutters.

"I can smell you! You smell like fish, don't you? District 4? I'm gonna get you!"

"What the fuck..." Ferric grabs his speargun and aims it at the tribute.

"Hit him in the chest, don't prolong his misery," Cress whispers.

"I hear you! I hear y-" Before he can even finish speaking, Ferric shoots him clean through the chest. Cress winces at the wet thump and then the sound of his body falling to the ground, limp. Ferric immediately runs and grabs the harpoon from the dead tribute's chest.

"Give me that." Cress digs the harpoon into the dirt and wipes it off carefully. "Hope this guy didn't have any weird diseases."

"Me too now that you mention it." Ferric looks green in the face so she hands him the bottle of water.

"Go to bed Ferric, I'll keep watch."

"You sure?" he mumbles, glancing at her.

"I'm sure."

"Thanks Cress." he gives her a half smile before huddling under the blanket and falling asleep.

Cress watches the stars, which are probably fake as well as hard to see, and tries to find the constellations, which are probably in the wrong spot, and watches the sky change colours as morning arrives, or rather watches the shadows get darker as the moon vanishes and the sun rises.

"Ferric, wake up." she shakes his shoulder. "Rise and shine, it's morning. Time to get a move on."

"Five more minutes," he mumbles, turning over to lie away from the opening that had the sunlight streaming in. Well, not sunlight. The trees blocked out all of the possible sun, making it very shady and gloomy.

"No more minutes, up and at em. Or I'll bust out the circus routine."

"And I'm up." Ferric splashes some water on his face before they remove the spile from the tree and put it back in Cress' bag. They pack up the other supplies and head out. Cress has her knives of course and Ferric has his speargun.

"Where too boss?" Ferric asks.

"I have honestly no idea." she glances around. "Let's just try to explore and get an idea of the terrain, yeah?"

"Sounds good to me." Ferric shrugs. They walk around the maze for a while, and eventually find a large beach, still surrounded by trees, with a small lake in the center.

"Oh my god, finally," Cress mutters, glancing around for people. "Shit, Ferric, get down." They duck behind the tree trunks and peek out towards the lake.

"What is it?" he asks softly.

"Careers."

"Shit."

"Shit indeed, if they find us we're fucked," Cress mutters.

"In the ass kind of fucked."

"Description not needed." she glances at the Careers. "What should we do?"

"I think we can take 'em." Ferric shrugs.

"Why did I ask you?" she mutters. "We're leaving, come on. We'll kill them off later, if they don't get us first."

"Hey now, let's be positive. We're gonna survive." Ferric's nose wrinkles at Cress' negativity.

"Sure, definitely." Cress grabs his arm and drags him back into the maze. The cannon goes off as she prepares to climb another tree and set up her trapeze there. "Shit. Who do you think that was?"

"No idea." Ferric shrugs. Cress looks away for a moment, sticking her knife into the bark of the tree and preparing to climb up when she hears Ferric's grunt of pain. She turns back to see the guy from 11 looking half mad and Ferric with a knife buried in his shoulder.

"Ferric, shit!" she quickly draws her own knives and launches one at the guy, hitting his chest, and then another that hit his throat.

She'd just killed someone, but she couldn't think about that right now. Ferric was hurt and she wasn't sure she would survive the Games without his help.

"Cress, help," he mumbles, sitting down at the base of the tree. She rips her knife out of the tree and sits down beside him, gripping his arm.

As if the Gamemakers were trying to torture them, the ground rumbles and the trees start shifting once more.

"Not now," Ferric groans, the knife still in his shoulder.

"Stay still, you're gonna be fine." Cress holds his hand and thankfully they don't get separated as the trees shift.

Now they were lost.

Again.

"Fuck."

no updates until thursday, as I won't have internet until then